Rachel Peden's journals of farm life finally being republished: rediscovering a rural voice

A lot of folks are excited that a new generation now has the privilege of reading the words of Rachel Peden, a popular newspaper columnist and book author who wrote about rural life in Indiana -- charming readers with her winsomely written stories about nature, preservation and life on the farm.

People like her son, Joe Peden.

“I think it's great that she's being rediscovered by so many people,” he said. “People say mother was way ahead of her time, writing about the importance of caring for the environment long before people were talking about that sort of thing.”

People like Linda Oblack, sponsoring editor for regional and railroad books at Indiana University Press, the company that recently republished two of Peden's three books and will republish her third next year.

“Her books, which deal with sustainability and green living and saving historic properties, are so relevant now,” Oblack said.

“They provide extremely enlightening and pleasant reading for people who would like to know what it was like to live on a farm decades ago.”

And people like author and longtime Monroe County resident Scott Russell Sanders, who says he's ashamed and dismayed that it took him so long to discover Peden's books.

“Why wasn't there an enthusiastic buzz around here about this perceptive, wry, lucid and subtle observer?” he asked. “She observed not only her farm on Maple Grove Road, but also her family, her neighbors, the Indiana landscape, the public movements of her day and the wheeling, mysterious universe.”

Sanders said by bringing Peden's three books back into print, IU Press is “performing a good deed for the literary consciousness of our state and for our nation's literature.”

Since 1986, Joe Peden and his wife, Joyce, have used their 350-acre farm in the historic Maple Grove Road district west of Bloomington to host hundreds of area youngsters every year at the Monroe County Children's Farm Festival created by Joe's parents -- Richard and Rachel Peden -- in 1953.

It was on that farm that Joe grew up. But his mother was more than a farm wife. She was a writer.

For four decades, from the 1940s until her death in 1975, Rachel Peden wrote about country life -- both the people and the land on which they carved out a living -- in regular columns that ran in The Indianapolis Star and The Muncie Evening News.

“Anyone she came into contact with, or any event she attended -- a parade, a county fair -- she would write a column about,” Joe said. “She was so popular that the Indianapolis Star continued publishing her column for a year after she passed away.”

Oblack said Rachel Peden used uncanny powers of observation to bring to life everyday happenings.

“Her observations of nature and cycles of life on the farm are invaluable,” she said.

Books are rediscovered

Peden penned three books published by Knopf Publishing. The first, “Rural Free: A Farmwife's Almanac of Country Living,” was published in 1961. The second, “The Land, The People,” was printed in 1966 and earned her the Indiana University Author's Award. Her final book, “Speak to the Earth,” was published in 1974, a year before her death.

All three eventually fell out of print, but in 2009, IU Press decided it was time to republish “Rural Free,” unveiling the witty wordsmith to a fresh generation of readers.

For Oblack, “Rural Free” -- in which Peden takes readers through each month of the year on the farm, describing what they harvested and ate -- conjured up treasured memories from her childhood.

“I grew up on a farm in Valparaiso, and in the early spring I started thinking about rhubarb, in midsummer I would think about raspberries, and in the fall I'd think about acorn squash,” she said. “Today, because you can get all kinds of food year-round, people no longer make that mental connection between the weather and certain foods. Her book describes an era when that was still true.”

Peden also loved to describe the natural world in which she lived, a world that stirred up feelings of awe in her heart.

“All through the cold, starry night, there was the sound of wind running restlessly, like a colt exploring a strange pasture,” she wrote in “Rural Free.” “It brushed the empty branches of trees and set them to dancing. It pushed the torn-cotton clouds back and looked inquiringly into the bright, serene face of the moon.”

The decision to thrust Peden's work back into the limelight began when former IU Press director John Gallman heard a pair of Bartholomew County musicians sing some songs they'd composed -- setting her words in “Rural Free” to music -- at a fundraiser.

Gallman was so moved by the performance, and the words that inspired it, that he fired off an e-mail to Oblack, suggesting she consider republishing Peden's books.

“I looked at the books and immediately fell in love with them,” Oblack said. “Her writing style is so personal. She makes you feel like she's talking to you personally.”

Oblack contacted Joe and Joyce Peden, who were thrilled with the idea. She then asked several experts in the book publishing field to look at the books, all of whom said bringing them back into print was a splendid idea.

IU Press moved quickly. It published “Rural Free” in 2009, and “The Land, The People” earlier this month. It will publish “Speak to the Earth” in 2011, with a foreword written by Sanders.

“Sales have been good and steady,” Oblack said. “These are the type of books that spread by word of mouth.”

Helping to fuel “Rural Free” sales has been a series of Porch Light events -- which combine music and public readings in an effort to promote regional books -- organized by Tom Roznowski, Penn Jensen and Sanders.

“We're very proud and honored that Mom's books have been reprinted and that they are still in demand,” Joe Peden said. “We're hopeful that today's readers will enjoy her books and pass them on to their children.”

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